As for the cost aspect, go get yourself signed up with the State of California Health Access Programs. It covers a glut of reproductive health care options, including permanent birth control. With that assistance, my Essure ended up costing me under $300.

I will look into Health Access. I have Family Pact which is through PP.

Can I ask if you had an IUD? If so is there a difference now than with the IUD? I get really bad sharp pains in my uterus at times and I believe it is from the IUD. PP could not find anything wrong with me though.

To answer your question from 3 pages ago! No, I never had an IUD, so unfortunately I can't compare! I felt mild cramping the first week or so after the insertion of Essure, but only very occasionally, and now I forget it's there all the damn time.

I may be lonely on this point, but I think people who choose to have large families are up for fair criticism. 1-2 kids per family is zero growth population, good going. More than that is making overpopulation worse and affecting every being on this planet. I'm sure there are more elegant ways to state it, but this whole "everyone's choice is valid" kinda bugs me. Obviously I won't be directly criticizing parents who already have large families, but I would like society to be able to encourage and educate folks to have fewer children, whether that is 2, 1 or zero. I don't think I need to get into all the reasons overpopulation is bad for planet dwellers. I would like to see voluntary child free people celebrated a bit more too, so that we can get those numbers down and account for areas with lagging education and opportunities.

I can see your point, I just don't know if it's productive. I mean, we all do things that are bad for the planet. I don't have kids and I use my extra income to travel (on planes) which is terrible for the planet. I bet my husband and I as citizens of the us consume and cause much more waste than a family of 8 in a third world country. One of my biggest pet peeves is when bike people get all high and mighty about their carbon footprint wrt people who drive cars. And as a vegan, getting judgey about the global impact of eating plants vs animals has never converted someone to a vegan, in my experience.

I would like to see child free folks more valued in the community as well but i dont know if I deserve special recognition since my desire to not have kids has nothing to do with overpopulation issues. I agree it's important to curb population growth but 1st world countries are already experiencing negative or stable pop growths. That means then that we are preaching to third world countries about what policies they should be following and that seems wrong since I have no idea what it's like to be a woman there. You know?

yes, I'm coming from a sort of "ideal" rather than practical standpoint and I agree judgey is not the way to go. Perhaps more gentle discouragement to have a big family. It's not so much a high and mighty thing as a slight cultural shift, at least in western cultures, what I have in mind. As to the developing nations, there are studies that correlate education with lower birthrates and better opportunities. I think the education piece *must* be emphasized, and hopefully the lower birthrates will follow. It's never comfortable to be telling other cultures what to do, especially coming from a greedy US person perspective where we use more resources per capita than just about anywhere else. So that's not exactly my intention.

Ok, back from work and oh my how this thread has grown, and one of my comments had something to do with that. I said I thought it was cool to see so many ladies here smart enough to not have kids. I did not mean for it to come across that literally. Of course I don't think we are smarter than people that do have kids. I should have used the word "cool" instead of "smart." I do feel a bit attacked here and think my comment was taken out of context. I realize I should have worded it another way, I just wanted to give a shout out to women that just like me decided not to have kids. I do feel like it was picked apart too much and it makes me feel like I clearly can't speak my mind in this thread. I am afraid to censor everything just to make sure I won't offend people. I will just go back to the mall to discuss mascara.

I find it interesting that many people who get really screamy about how buying instead of adopting "KIIIILLS A SHELTER DOG" do not also believe that having a biological child instead of adopting is condemning a child to foster care. I mean, I think both of those ideas are false and extreme, but it seems inconsistent to me.

This is actually something I've given a lot of thought to. I rescued both of my cats, why would I make a baby when there are so many already that need good homes? This has not been a popular viewpoint the handful of times I shared it out loud ; ) There is a lot of resistance, always, when comparing human life to non-human animal life. So if I do ever have kids, a prospect I currently have zero interest in, I would adopt.

I like the idea of positive shout outs to other childfree folks. Like the old Budweiser commercials: "Here's to you, Ms. Finished-The-Project-and-Made-The-Presentation-Alone-Because-Your-Coworkers-Had-To-Go-To-The-School-Play"

And usually I don't mind helping out when a coworker has a kid situation to deal with. I just would like people to ask instead of assume I can do it because I don't have kids. My time is valuable too. A Thank You would be nice as well.

I actually have a serious question. I was arguing with someone else, somewhere else (shocking, I know) and they pulled out "you're not a parent so you can't know" as an argument stopping technique to respond to something that my friend said (she is not a parent). I find this to be personally disturbing as the issues surrounding parenting, children, education, and so forth have implications way beyond a particular family. It feels as if we've drifted far from the personal being political. Does anyone here think that they should not or cannot comment where children/parenting is concerned because they are not a parent?

Thinking that women have some sort of inherent, specialized knowledge as parents is dangerously close to biological determinism (a first wave feminist issue) and contributes to the idea that you are incomplete if you don't have children. It also means that men have less of an obligation to have children which is why his thread was framed as a women's issue.

_________________A whole lot of access and privilege goes into being sanctimonious pricks J-DubDessert is currently a big bowl of sanctimonious, passive aggressive vegan enduced boak. FezzaYou people are way less funny than Pandacookie. Sucks to be you.-interrobang?!

Does anyone remember where it was talked about that on some airline at some time some kid that was flying alone had to be seated next a woman instead of the man the child originally would have been sitting next to? Maybe it was a free range kids thing or some other stranger danger post, but a lot of these all Women Inherently Know Best For Kids things are reminding me of it.

I remember that and it may have been the free range kids blog? I would say I have gotten that as a woman. People assuming I should be jumping in to help out a kid or something when I don't know jack about things like changing a diaper. Panda Knows Inherently Little About What Is Best For Kids. And Father O' The Year could be next to me but wouldn't get the nudge to do the work because men inherently don't know what to do with kids.

I have gotten that as well although it has been more like surprise that I don't know how to hold a baby, etc. more like (when handed a baby to hold) 'oh my god look at how she's holding her! Ha ha!' Nope just because I'm female doesn't mean I am naturally a caregiver.

Well, maybe I missed it, but I don't think anyone here is calling your wife stupid or saying you're a bad person. I know that having kids is super personal and comments on the topic can be easy to feel personally stung by. But sometimes when I rant and complain I make generalizations. That's what frustration does at times. I'm not saying it's great, but I don't think anybody here is meaning to personally attack anyone else on the board.

Eta: Why would your ex say that to you?! That's not nice to say the least.

It's been kind of on and off, but the most egregious recent example was something like 3 pages back. I'm not going to go dredge it up. People seem to be chilling, I've said my big thing, and I hope we can just talk about stuff now.

And yeah, she had some issues. There's a reason she became an ex. (And she was pretty explicitly childfree, but I think that was because she had weird issues with her parents and didn't want to pass them on, which was pretty reasonable except that she transferred those issues to basically everyone else around her which made her very hard to be friends with. And then later she moved in with a guy who has a 5-year-old kid and sort of grudgingly admitted that some kids could be sort of okay. I don't think she's having any of her own anytime soon, but she's shifted around a bit.)

I actually have a serious question. I was arguing with someone else, somewhere else (shocking, I know) and they pulled out "you're not a parent so you can't know" as an argument stopping technique to respond to something that my friend said (she is not a parent). I find this to be personally disturbing as the issues surrounding parenting, children, education, and so forth have implications way beyond a particular family. It feels as if we've drifted far from the personal being political. Does anyone here think that they should not or cannot comment where children/parenting is concerned because they are not a parent?

Thinking that women have some sort of inherent, specialized knowledge as parents is dangerously close to biological determinism (a first wave feminist issue) and contributes to the idea that you are incomplete if you don't have children. It also means that men have less of an obligation to have children which is why his thread was framed as a women's issue.

Out of curiosity, what was the context of the argument? I know there are things I thought would be one way before kids that are quite different after kids-- being a parent has a way of stripping away your ideals and leaving you a framework of what actually works. It's the difference between concept and implementation, and there are lots of changes along the way.

I also totally agree that parenting choices have tons of implications beyond a single family-- everything from vaccinations to the instilling of a sense of personal responsibility and work ethic to how you teach the kid to drive or act in public.

I think you have two separate points there, too, both of which are pretty good ones to make (although maybe not in this thread since now it's turning into less of a childfree issue and more of a gender-roles-in-parenting issue)-- do you see the "You're not a parent so you wouldn't know" thing as the same as the "women are not complete as women until they have children" thing or are they two separate observations?

I like the idea of positive shout outs to other childfree folks. Like the old Budweiser commercials: "Here's to you, Ms. Finished-The-Project-and-Made-The-Presentation-Alone-Because-Your-Coworkers-Had-To-Go-To-The-School-Play"

And usually I don't mind helping out when a coworker has a kid situation to deal with. I just would like people to ask instead of assume I can do it because I don't have kids. My time is valuable too. A Thank You would be nice as well.

I actually have a serious question. I was arguing with someone else, somewhere else (shocking, I know) and they pulled out "you're not a parent so you can't know" as an argument stopping technique to respond to something that my friend said (she is not a parent). I find this to be personally disturbing as the issues surrounding parenting, children, education, and so forth have implications way beyond a particular family. It feels as if we've drifted far from the personal being political. Does anyone here think that they should not or cannot comment where children/parenting is concerned because they are not a parent?

Yes.

Or more accurately, I feel like I can't comment because I'll be told this. So my thoughts and opinions on the subject will be invalidated (or even met with hostility) whether they have merit or not. So I don't bother.

_________________Ain't no guarantees in life, and nothing that comes out of my vagina can change that. - Erika Soyf*cker

I don't know. When I read some of the things said in this thread I think it must be pretty hard to be a parent and read that and not want to jump in to defend yourself. Not everything, obviously, but the few things - like the comment esme addressed and the things that are like having a baby is selfish. Or say..if someone is saying they don't want to have a baby because it takes over your life and all of a sudden MOTHER is just your identity and like...what if there's a mother out there who doesn't live her life that way and she wants to interject something about that experience but feels she can't because she's not childless.

I don't know, I think about my mom too much.

i was definitely not trying to be offensive at all, and I am sorry if it came off like that.the reason I wrote the word mother in caps was because I wanted to separate motherhood in general from the dogmatic, overwhelming meaning it sometimes gets. I was trying to connect my post to the article I posted before that.

just to clarify: I don't think parents are stupid or that children aren't awesome, but I have a lot of thoughts on the subject of having kids which is obviously different from a lot of parents (and child free people too), and I thought this was a place to talk about that, relate with other people about what is scary/not attractive/would make it impossible to lead the life I want to live/etc.

Women are told they have a "maternal instinct" and a "biological clock." Women are expected, by nature, to know things about children and childrearing. This is part of the mythology that leads to huge societal pressure for women to become mothers. That has huge implications in the life of women who choose not to have children. So, I do see it as connected.

lepelaar, that makes me so furious! I wish you and others would comment when you see something that catches you attention. Perhaps part of the frustration being expressed here is the fact that while you feel as if you would be attacked or shut down if you commented on parenting/child threads the reverse is certainly not true. People who are not women without children felt comfortable tossing their opinions on the subject with abandon.

_________________A whole lot of access and privilege goes into being sanctimonious pricks J-DubDessert is currently a big bowl of sanctimonious, passive aggressive vegan enduced boak. FezzaYou people are way less funny than Pandacookie. Sucks to be you.-interrobang?!

well, the main difference is that everyone who has kids knows what it's like to not have kids. we were all childless at some point, and especially those people who were older and who struggled a lot with the decision to have kids do have a lot to say on the subject. it's just the nature of it. i agree that people can get sanctimonious about it though.

lepelaar, that makes me so furious! I wish you and others would comment when you see something that catches you attention. Perhaps part of the frustration being expressed here is the fact that while you feel as if you would be attacked or shut down if you commented on parenting/child threads the reverse is certainly not true. People who are not women without children felt comfortable tossing their opinions on the subject with abandon.

I definitely feel this way when I hear people talking about how restrictive they are with their kids behavior. Recently some coworkers were taking about not letting their kids play at a playground because the ground was hard and they were afraid they'd get hurt if they fell. I was sort of shocked and wanted to comment about it but I didn't feel like I could because I'm not a parent, so what do I know? But as I mentioned earlier in the thread, this scares me off from wanting kids a little bit because I think, is overprotectiveness now the norm, and would I have to be that way if I was a parent?

_________________"If I were M. de la Viandeviande, I would now write a thirteen page post about how you have to have free will to be vegan, but modern science does not suggest any evidence for free will, therefore it is impossible to be vegan." -mumbles

I don't know. When I read some of the things said in this thread I think it must be pretty hard to be a parent and read that and not want to jump in to defend yourself. Not everything, obviously, but the few things - like the comment esme addressed and the things that are like having a baby is selfish. Or say..if someone is saying they don't want to have a baby because it takes over your life and all of a sudden MOTHER is just your identity and like...what if there's a mother out there who doesn't live her life that way and she wants to interject something about that experience but feels she can't because she's not childless.

I don't know, I think about my mom too much.

i was definitely not trying to be offensive at all, and I am sorry if it came off like that.the reason I wrote the word mother in caps was because I wanted to separate motherhood in general from the dogmatic, overwhelming meaning it sometimes gets. I was trying to connect my post to the article I posted before that.

just to clarify: I don't think parents are stupid or that children aren't awesome, but I have a lot of thoughts on the subject of having kids which is obviously different from a lot of parents (and child free people too), and I thought this was a place to talk about that, relate with other people about what is scary/not attractive/would make it impossible to lead the life I want to live/etc.

Oh I didn't mean the concept was offensive, I totally agree that that is something worth discussing. Just that if we try to exclude parents from the conversation because they might be offended then we also exclude helpful commentary about that sort of thing. I don't think that's what you were suggesting.

lepelaar, that makes me so furious! I wish you and others would comment when you see something that catches you attention. Perhaps part of the frustration being expressed here is the fact that while you feel as if you would be attacked or shut down if you commented on parenting/child threads the reverse is certainly not true. People who are not women without children felt comfortable tossing their opinions on the subject with abandon.

Recently my boyfriend called a friend out on FB who keeps posting that she has spyware on her teens phone and computer...She thinks it is cute to 'monitor' her teen this way and post things on FB. Her kid has not done anything to our knowledge to warrant this behavior. She is going to push her kid away, she only sees her every other weekend as is...

A few weeks ago in Target there was a little boy who kept asking his mom for a toy, it was pretty annoying but I was surprised when she said loudly she was going to slap him in front of everyone if he did not shut up. what the fizzle? I wanted to say something but I did not know what to say.

Does anyone remember where it was talked about that on some airline at some time some kid that was flying alone had to be seated next a woman instead of the man the child originally would have been sitting next to? Maybe it was a free range kids thing or some other stranger danger post, but a lot of these all Women Inherently Know Best For Kids things are reminding me of it.

When I was 5, I flew from Seattle to San Diego by myself. I remember being sat next to a man because I kept telling my mom how nice the guy was. I think he helped me with my seatbelt and maybe talked to me a little.

On our last flight to San Diego, there was a family with 3 kids (2 parents, 3 kids). They were split between 2 rows with a row in the middle. On the second half of the flight, the parents left their 2 kids in the same row with a lady (across from me) so that they could sit together in 1 row with 1 of their kids. I was a bit shocked and on the descent of the flight, they didn't even come to check that their kids had their seatbelts buckled (the kids were probably around 4-6 yrs old) but then the flight attendant came around and told the lady in the same row (not the mother) that the kids seat belts had to be buckled. Then the kids kicked the seats and screamed the entire descent. I was a bit shocked that the parents would leave their kids with someone else that they didn't know. I would've been pissed if it was me.

_________________You are all a disgrace to vegans. Go f*ck yourselves, especially linanil.

I find it interesting that many people who get really screamy about how buying instead of adopting "KIIIILLS A SHELTER DOG" do not also believe that having a biological child instead of adopting is condemning a child to foster care. I mean, I think both of those ideas are false and extreme, but it seems inconsistent to me.

This is actually something I've given a lot of thought to. I rescued both of my cats, why would I make a baby when there are so many already that need good homes? This has not been a popular viewpoint the handful of times I shared it out loud ; ) There is a lot of resistance, always, when comparing human life to non-human animal life. So if I do ever have kids, a prospect I currently have zero interest in, I would adopt.

I mentioned earlier in the thread that adoption isn't that cut and dry. I remember reading not too long ago that the philosophy of foster agencies and adoption in the US has changed somewhat because it is now believed that taking kids away permanently from a bad home may cause more psychological damage than trying to keep them in the home. Obviously it depends on the situation but the goal is definitely with trying to assist the parents to create a stable home, which I think is a good thing but all efforts need to be exhausted prior to taking a child away from a 'bad situation'. Also, rights are conferred to close relatives as well so even if a child has been in the foster to adopt program, a relative can trump any foster parents with intent to adopt. Obviously this may vary from state to state but this is what I have seen/read about in California at least.

When my husband's sister (who actually happens to be adopted) got pregnant right before we got married, she was in an unsure situation. My husband and I actually briefly discussed the topic of adopting her child/bring up the subject with her but luckily, her situation stabilized and greatly improved so it wasn't even a thought. It wasn't that I really wanted a child, because I didn't but I think that I felt an obligation to at least think about it due to to some sense of family obligation.

_________________You are all a disgrace to vegans. Go f*ck yourselves, especially linanil.